There's a guy in my neighborhood whom I see when I'm walking the dog at night. He sits alone in his garage watching TV.

No kidding. He has a color TV in his garage. Bigger screen than I've got. With a remote. I've seen him change channels from a folding chair.

But he's not the only one watching TV outside. There are others, men living in exile.

This seemed crazy to me. Someone could steal the TV. There was no couch. Wasn't it cold?

It took me a long time before I figured out the reasons behind this, or at least my own theory.

Brother, it's a turf war.

Case in point: Castle Gordon. Two daughters. One Mrs. G. Two TVs. You do the math. I'm outnumbered. A man in a foxhole ducking man-hate mortars from the Lifetime Network and sidestepping dinner-table conversations about bra sizes.

There's no place to hide.

When I viewed it this way, I saw the garage in a brand new light: Garage as refuge. Every man needs this. A place to be himself. A cave to sulk in, lick his wounds. A haven where no one complains if you belch or adjust your shorts.

Of course, it doesn't have to be a garage to provide a soothing testosterone balm.

I know a guy in Palolo Valley who enclosed an area beneath his home, claimed it as a semi-private clubhouse.

Truth be told, he has to share it with his wife, an artist, but he's staked a claim. He put in a bathroom. With a telephone.

This is like every little boy's fantasy, right? To have your own backyard fort, that was the height of cool.

I had one in the fourth grade, a sideways-leaning little box with only three walls, a leaky roof and a place to hide the Playboy magazines.

When you grow up and get a mortgage, you get a fort, too, only now it's called a garage. But with a difference. Cars have to go there, and they suck up more space than a Hummer sucks gas going up Tantalus.

Still, you make do, and sometimes you chance upon a gem, like the garage I once had that came with a workbench so tough, you could hammer on that thing like the devil's own blacksmith.

My current garage is small, more of a carport, really. But I have enough room to keep a refrigerator for my beer, my home gym and a boom box. It's a low-rent refuge, no room for a TV, which would get wet when it rained, assuming I had an extra TV.

And if I did, I bet I would have to fight with my family over the remote. Maybe I have it good. As it is, none of them fights over the bench press.

In the spirit of manly solidarity, though, I suggested to Mrs. G. that men should have a national day of unity, a day where they can take back the house. She didn't skip a beat. She said: "You already have one. It's called Super Bowl Sunday."

She had me there.

Did I tell you that there's a guy down the street who hosts a Super Bowl party in his garage?

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.